be sick of being accosted, and—well, as I said, you’d an air about you, of being perfectly content in your own company. Which I’ll leave you to now.’ He sketched another bow. ‘It was a pleasure, Miss Brannagh.’
It took her until he had turned his back and taken two steps to summon up the courage to call him back. ‘Mr Malahide, don’t go just yet.’ But as he turned, her nerve was already crumbling. ‘You probably prefer to be alone—I noticed that you too seemed very content in your own company, but if you would like—oh, this is too awkward.’
‘It is indeed,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘You know nothing about me, and under normal circumstances, my being very much aware of that fact, I wouldn’t dream of inviting you to take coffee with me.’
‘Or perhaps an ice?’
‘Or indeed, an ice. Would it be presumptive of me to issue such an invitation?’
‘An ice, in a café in full public view,’ Estelle said, ‘hardly an unseemly suggestion. Admiring art is very tiring work. Your invitation isn’t in the least presumptive, Mr Malahide, it is very welcome, and I am happy to accept it.’
They sat in a café in another of Florence’s many piazze. Mr Malahide drank coffee. Estelle ate a gelato flavoured with lemon.
‘What brought you to Florence?’ he asked her.
‘The pedantic answer is a ship. I sailed from Nice to Leghorn.’ She contemplated a spoonful of ice, allowing it to melt on her tongue before continuing. ‘In terms of my thinking, notwithstanding my views on art, all the guide books insist that no trip to the Continent is complete without a visit to Florence—so here I am.’
‘You’re travelling around Europe on your own!’
‘Is that so surprising?’
‘Yes,’ Mr Malahide said frankly. ‘You must be an extremely intrepid young woman, with a remarkably complacent family back in Ireland.’
‘Oh, as to that, my parents died ten years ago, and I’d label them rather more indifferent than complacent. But that is not to say that I’ve no one to worry about my welfare,’ Estelle added hurriedly, castigating herself for her indiscretion, even if it was the truth. ‘My Aunt Kate, who took us girls in when we were orphaned, would do plenty of worrying, were it not for Eloise—that is my eldest sister. She has done a great deal to grease the wheels of my wandering, so to speak, and to ensure that none of them worry needlessly about me either. I have a portfolio of names and addresses, letters of introduction, lists of people in every city I can turn to if I need help of any sort.’
‘Your sister must be extremely well connected.’
‘And practical. Her husband is—was—in a senior position in the government. Thanks to him, I’ve had my currency changed, accommodation recommended, and my papers accepted at every border without question. I promised to ensure that someone on my list knows that I have arrived, and someone knows where I am headed next so that my sister can keep track of me. So, you see, I’m not really very intrepid at all.’
‘I beg to differ. Intrepid, and modest with it,’ he insisted, eyeing her with flattering respect. ‘How long have you been travelling?’
‘I left England back in June. Since then I’ve been to France, Spain, Portugal and now Italy.’
‘Good Lord, that’s quite a tour. Will you be publishing your journals when you return home?’
‘Shall I? Tales of a Single Lady Traveller,’ Estelle opined, slanting him a mischievous smile. ‘It’s the whole point of travelling, isn’t it, to share one’s experience with the world, to prove that travel is elevating.’
Mr Malahide eyed her sceptically. ‘I could be wrong, we have only just met, but you don’t strike me as either a diarist or an educationist.’
‘You are sadly right. To be honest, I have not once felt in the least bit elevated by any of the paintings or the tapestries or even the statues in the Uffizi, though I assure you, it is not for want of trying. They say, don’t they, that the more one stares at a painting, the more one appreciates it. Well, I have stood in front of countless Old Masters trying to absorb their greatness. I am beginning to think,’ she concluded sorrowfully, ‘that I am a heathen. Or perhaps my female mind is too feeble for the task.’
She was pleased to note that he was not in the least bit taken in. ‘And I am beginning to think that your female mind, far from being feeble, takes great pleasure in making fun of conventional wisdom. I’d also hazard a guess that what you really like is to observe real people, rather than portraits on a wall. An Englishwoman alone would sit in that café only long enough to finish her coffee,’ Mr Malahide added, seeing her surprise. ‘You take your time, content to simply watch the world go by.’
‘Ah, but that may be because I am simply empty-headed.’
‘I already know that is far from the case.’
‘But indeed, Mr Malahide, my ignorance of culture knows no bounds. My education was—well, let’s say sporadic, at best. My parents, like many others, it seems to me, considered education wasted on girls, and therefore money spent on governesses squandered, so we three sisters had scant experience of either.’
‘Three sisters?’
‘I have mentioned Eloise. I also have a twin. Phoebe is a chef—chef patron, actually, for she owns her own restaurant in London. Le Pas à Pas, it’s called—have you heard of it?’
‘I’m afraid not. I haven’t had cause to visit London in some time. Is it a popular restaurant?’
‘The most lauded in the whole city,’ Estelle said proudly. ‘It only opened in April, but already she has plans to open another.’
‘I know little of such things—I’m afraid I view food as fuel—but isn’t it quite unusual to have a female chef patron?’
‘Extremely. In fact Phoebe may even be unique.’
‘So the pioneering spirit runs in the family?’
‘If it does, then my sisters have the full quota between them. I’m no pioneer, Mr Malahide, I’m simply a purposeless wanderer, who has taken up far more than her share of the conversation.’
‘Sure,’ he replied in a much-thickened accent, ‘are we Irish not famed for having the gift of the gab?’
‘Nevertheless.’ Estelle pushed her empty dish to one side. ‘That’s quite enough about me. Tell me, what brings you to Florence?’
‘I’ve come to study mathematics. I know,’ he said, holding his hands up and laughing at her bemused expression, ‘a confession guaranteed to stop any conversation in its tracks. I’m also well past student age, but that’s what I’ve been doing none the less, for the better part of the last year. And now I can see you’re revising your opinion of me entirely, from someone you’re happy to while away a convivial hour or so with, to a crusty academic who prefers equations to words.’
‘Or a puzzle you’ve tempted me into solving, more
